Jonathan Turley: Obama is the “Very Danger the Constitution Was Designed to Avoid”

Dec 5, 2013

RUSH: Jonathan Turley was testifying Tuesday before a House Judiciary Committee on the constitutionality of some of Obama’s uses of executive branch power. Now, this is important, because this is right.

Turley is a leftist “moderate,” so he’s at George Washington University law school, and Bob Goodlatte, Republican from Virginia, was questioning him, and he said, “Professor Turley, the Constitution, the system of separated powers, is not simply about stopping one branch of government from usurping another. It’s about protecting the liberty of Americans from the dangers of concentrated government power.

“How does the president’s unilateral modification of an act of Congress,” meaning his willy-nilly granting of waivers, delaying implementation. All of these things he’s doing with his own health care law are unconstitutional. He cannot do what he’s doing, according to the Constitution. So Goodlatte is asking Turley here, a constitutional professor: How does the president’s unilateral modification — just acting willy-nilly, acting like a dictator, you know, pretending to play dictator — affect the balance of power between the political branches and the liberty interests of the American people?

TURLEY: The danger is quite severe. The problem with what the president is doing is that he’s not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system. He’s becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. We have what many once called an imperial presidency model.

RUSH: Stop the tape.

Did you hear that? Jonathan Turley, otherwise a close associate of Obama’s and one inclined to hope Obama would succeed, actually said the president of the United States is becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid. Amen. That is exactly right. The Constitution was written in order to prevent this kind of coalescing of power by one man or by one branch.

It was designed to prevent this and stop it. But if you’ve got a doormat Congress or a doormat court system that’s not gonna stand up for themselves and their branch, then he’s gonna get away with it. It’s exactly what’s happening — and you think I’m gonna let them turn me into the black hat here? I’m not gonna let them turn me into a black hat. This is the guy who is becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid.

Turley went on to say, “We have what many once called an imperial presidency model of largely unchecked authority, and with that trend we also have the continued rise of this fourth branch. We have agencies that are quite large that issue regulations.” He’s exactly right. The EPA is issuing regulations that they are not empowered to issue. The EPA is telling you how you can and can’t run your business, organize your home and your property in ways they’re not empowered to do.

But if nobody stops them, if everybody in opposition is a doormat, they’re gonna do it and get away with it. Turley is right on the money, and in order to keep people from discovering this or figuring this out on their own — in order to prevent this that Turley’s saying from getting traction — it’s time to play Santa Claus! It’s time for income inequality, raise the minimum wage.

“Let’s start bashing the poor, let’s do class warfare, and let’s go back to the mean Republicans. Let’s go back to the tried and true.